Is there any value in the Law vs Chaos axis?


Prerelease Discussion

51 to 100 of 157 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>

We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
SilverliteSword wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
That's not an inviolable rule (torture as a means is Evil, no matter the ends), but it's a pretty good general guideline.
Uh, saywhat? I'd torture the lich overlord to save the lives of innocent children. Classic Utilitarianism (aka CG) demands that you be willing to do the distasteful things in order to achieve the greater good. CG is all about the greater good.

I disagree. This might just be me, but utilitarianism (really, all consequentialist moral systems) is among the least chaotic imaginable because the consequences of our actions often rely upon factors that we cannot control or even anticipate. Consequence-based morality not only discounts the idea of human agency, it outright rejects it. If we had perfect information, if we knew literally everything, then there would be an argument for it. But we don't. As it stands, if only consequences matter, then our choices don't matter. Choices not mattering is not what Chaos wants.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would argue that Lawful is about the Greater Good, while Chaotic is about the Individual.

Say a plague is sweeping an area. It is spreading faster than the temples are able to cure it.

Quarantine is an effective measure of preventing the spread of the disease.

Lawful societies would most likely respond by imposing a full quarantine. No one gets out once they have entered the quarantined area. Within the area, they may isolate it further. Quarantine lasts until it is proven that the disease is no longer active in the area.

Chaotic societies would most likely look at each individual and try to determine if they were infected. Those that are free from any contamination would be allowed to leave. Those who took proper precautions before going in to prevent infection would be allowed to come and go. The evaluation is done on each individual, not a group.

Lawful is about the group, chaotic is about the individual.

A lawful citizen should generally obey the quarantine.

A chaotic citizen may decide they can best judge the situation for themselves. They may well ignore the quarantine.

Someone who is more neutral would try to keep the quarantine intact, but be willing to make exceptions where warranted.

A lawful evil society may well just destroy the quarantined area and everything in it. Best way to make sure it doesn't spread!

A chaotic evil individual who was infected would not only break quarantine, but go to other cities and visit their medical professionals in hopes of finding someone that would cure them. Their own cure is all that matters, they could care less what happens to the rest of society.


Melkiador wrote:
We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.

Well thats why its a highly debatable concept to begin with. Though I figure monks can belong to temples and monasteries. They can follow long held traditions and stick to consistent behavior over deviation. Its possible to have loner lawful folks and party oriented chaotic folks. Bretl's post above highlights this well.

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Melkiador wrote:
We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.

This is not how collectivism works. Someone who espouses collectivist philosophy might say things like ""I maintain harmony in the groups of which I am a member" and "I will sacrifice my self-interest for the benefit of the group" and "My relationships with others in my group are more important than my personal accomplishments."

Confucianism, Bushido, and frankly most Eastern Philosophies that Monks are vaguely culturally based on are very collectivist.

You don't have to be a member of a large group you see every day to be philosophically collectivist.

All that said, some Monks do not fit this mold very well. Those Monks should probably not be Lawful, and the rules should probably allow that.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Melkiador wrote:
We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.

I contend that the problem here is that monks should not have the requirement of being lawful.


BretI wrote:
A chaotic evil individual who was infected would not only break quarantine, but go to other cities and visit their medical professionals in hopes of finding someone that would cure them. Their own cure is all that matters, they could care less what happens to the rest of society.

I feel a lawful evil individual would probably do the same thing though, just with different flavor text. "My life is important to my society, so I should leave town and not infect any of them, and I can go to other places to try to find a cure for myself."


gustavo iglesias wrote:
Melkiador wrote:
We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.
I contend that the problem here is that monks should not have the requirement of being lawful.

Lol. Maybe. I think part of the problem is that in 3rd edition they wanted monks to not have as many troubles being lawful as they might have had in 2nd edition, where the language used was a little tighter, so they added the whole code business to make that work. But it cheapened the whole alignment structure.


For comparison, here is how alignment worked in 2nd Edition D&D.

Spoiler:
Law, Neutrality, and Chaos

Attitudes toward order and chaos are divided into three opposing beliefs. Picture these beliefs as the points of a triangle, all pulling away from each other. The three beliefs are law, chaos, and neutrality. One of these represents each character’s ethos — his understanding of society and relationships.

Characters who believe in law maintain that order, organization, and society are important, indeed vital, forces of the universe. The relationships between people and governments exist naturally. Lawful philosophers maintain that this order is not created by man but is a natural law of the universe. Although man does not create orderly structures, it is his obligation to function within them, lest the fabric of everything crumble. For less philosophical types, lawfulness manifests itself in the belief that laws should be made and followed, if only to have understandable rules for society. People should not pursue personal vendettas, for example, but should present their claims to the proper authorities. Strength comes through unity of action, as can be seen in guilds, empires, and powerful churches.

Those espousing neutrality tend to take a more balanced view of things. They hold that for every force in the universe, there is an opposite force somewhere. Where there is lawfulness, there is also chaos; where there is neutrality, there is also partisanship. The same is true of good and evil, life and death. What is important is that all these forces remain in balance with each other. If one factor becomes ascendant over its opposite, the universe become unbalanced. If enough of these polarities go out of balance, the fabric of reality could pull itself apart. For example, if death became ascendant over life, the universe would become a barren wasteland.

Philosophers of neutrality not only presuppose the existence of opposites, but they also theorize that the universe would vanish should one opposite completely destroy the other (since nothing can exist without its opposite). Fortunately for these philosophers (and all sentient life), the universe seems to be efficient at regulating itself. Only when a powerful, unbalancing force appears (which almost never happens) need the defenders of neutrality becomes seriously concerned.

The believers in chaos hold that there is no preordained order or careful balance of forces in the universe. Instead they see the universe as a collection of things and events, some related to each other and others completely independent. They tend to hold that individual actions account for the differences in things and that events in one area do not alter the fabric of the universe halfway across the galaxy. Chaotic philosophers believe in the power of the individual over his own destiny and are fond of anarchistic nations. Being more pragmatic, non-philosophers recognize the function of society in protecting their individual rights. Chaotics can be hard to govern as a group, since they place their own needs and desires above those of society.


gustavo iglesias wrote:
Melkiador wrote:
We come back to the monk. Have you seen many monks worried about the collective? I haven't. Instead they just worry about following their personal code. I mean, their adventuring, so they already left their monastery behind. They weren't worried about that collective.
I contend that the problem here is that monks should not have the requirement of being lawful.

Part of the issue is that Monks are supposed to be the orderly traditionalist counterpart to the malleable and responsive barbarian. It makes perfect sense if you value alignment, though if you don't, it's a confining paradigm, which is perfectly understandable.


Neurophage wrote:
SilverliteSword wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
That's not an inviolable rule (torture as a means is Evil, no matter the ends), but it's a pretty good general guideline.
Uh, saywhat? I'd torture the lich overlord to save the lives of innocent children. Classic Utilitarianism (aka CG) demands that you be willing to do the distasteful things in order to achieve the greater good. CG is all about the greater good.
I disagree. This might just be me, but utilitarianism (really, all consequentialist moral systems) is among the least chaotic imaginable because the consequences of our actions often rely upon factors that we cannot control or even anticipate. Consequence-based morality not only discounts the idea of human agency, it outright rejects it. If we had perfect information, if we knew literally everything, then there would be an argument for it. But we don't. As it stands, if only consequences matter, then our choices don't matter. Choices not mattering is not what Chaos wants.

I'm not sure I follow. Even in Utilitarian systems choices definitely matter. Now, choice is less restricted than in Lawful societies, because in Lawful societies many choices are considered innately evil regardless of their outcomes. When we start saying stuff like "If you had to kill one man to save 100, do it, it's for the greater good." Then I'd say we have not cut out human choice at all.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Melkiador wrote:
BretI wrote:
A chaotic evil individual who was infected would not only break quarantine, but go to other cities and visit their medical professionals in hopes of finding someone that would cure them. Their own cure is all that matters, they could care less what happens to the rest of society.
I feel a lawful evil individual would probably do the same thing though, just with different flavor text. "My life is important to my society, so I should leave town and not infect any of them, and I can go to other places to try to find a cure for myself."

My life is important, so I will order those most likely to be able to effect the cure to come here (into the quarantined area) and cure me.

Still, my legacy is also important. I want what I have built to survive after me. If I maintain the quarantine in spite of being in the area, others will see that none is above the rules. If I die, those who follow will understand and continue my work. What I have built will last long after I have gone.

I believe that breaking quarantine is a chaotic act. How chaotic it is would depend on precautions taken.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
SilverliteSword wrote:
Neurophage wrote:
SilverliteSword wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
That's not an inviolable rule (torture as a means is Evil, no matter the ends), but it's a pretty good general guideline.
Uh, saywhat? I'd torture the lich overlord to save the lives of innocent children. Classic Utilitarianism (aka CG) demands that you be willing to do the distasteful things in order to achieve the greater good. CG is all about the greater good.
I disagree. This might just be me, but utilitarianism (really, all consequentialist moral systems) is among the least chaotic imaginable because the consequences of our actions often rely upon factors that we cannot control or even anticipate. Consequence-based morality not only discounts the idea of human agency, it outright rejects it. If we had perfect information, if we knew literally everything, then there would be an argument for it. But we don't. As it stands, if only consequences matter, then our choices don't matter. Choices not mattering is not what Chaos wants.
I'm not sure I follow. Even in Utilitarian systems choices definitely matter. Now, choice is less restricted than in Lawful societies, because in Lawful societies many choices are considered innately evil regardless of their outcomes. When we start saying stuff like "If you had to kill one man to save 100, do it, it's for the greater good." Then I'd say we have not cut out human choice at all.

I think the argument he's making is that, because outcomes are only indirectly affected by a character's actions, it devalues that character's choices. I forget the name of the philosophical principle, but the example I know works like this:

Two men go to a party. Both get equally drunk and both decide to drive their (identical) cars home along the same route. One man encounters no traffic and arrives home without incident. The other man hits a car stalled in the middle of the road, killing a family.

Both men made the same choices and undertook the same actions, but due to pure random chance, one is now a multiple murderer. Is he more evil than the man who got home safe?

It's an interesting scenario, but I'm not sure it's applicable to PF as the fact that animals and inanimate objects don't have alignment would seem to suggest some sort of self-awareness is required to possess non-Neutral alignments


Alternatively you could redefine things so that law=civilization and chaos=nature (and I guess neutral means "can't we all get along?") :)

"Civilization" means imposing a human/dwarf/angel/devil/hobgoblin, etc.-made order on nature (which could be Big Nature [the jungle, the ocean, etc.] or personal nature) and nature means pushing back against civilization and reclaiming territory from it.

Thus certain actions are hard coded (which seems to be the actual premise of this thread). For example, in this definition, farming is lawful (or at least nonchaotic) in the same way that animate dead is evil.

Of course, this would require some changes. Most prominently, druids would more or less have to be chaotic, but hey, an edition change is a good time to do something like that.


Law/Chaos has been ingrained in D&D (which Pathfinder is still trying to emulate) since close to the beginning. See Rod in 7 Parts, the Blood War, etc.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I feel like LN druids make a lot of sense though, as the person who watches nature and sees everything filling its proper role- apple trees produce apples and never potatoes, the wolf eats the rabbit and never the other way around. An LN Druid sees the natural order as literally an order and sees the faults of civilization as stemming from people not knowing where they belong or what to do.

I wouldn't want to get rid of this kind of druid.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I feel like LN druids make a lot of sense though, as the person who watches nature and sees everything filling its proper role- apple trees produce apples and never potatoes, the wolf eats the rabbit and never the other way around.

Yep, LN is the ultimate expression of Law, without clouding of Good or Evil.


In the game Icewind Dale there is a strong conflict between Law vs Chaos presented. The chaotic barbarian tribes are very angry with the constant invasion of the 'civilized' people.

In Planescape setting, AL is the key factor. Armies of fiends and demons at war because one side is Chaos and the other is Law. Entire cities in the planes can switch one plane to another if the people living in it have a strong belief towards that new AL.

What I am trying to say with my amazing communication skills is that there can be a value if the setting the PCs play at is adequate for it.


I’m not saying that law vs chaos couldn’t be meaningful. It could. And it was more so in 2nd edition D&D. I’m more talking about how the meaningfulness of the axis was stripped away in 3rd edition, that Pathfinder inherited.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

4 people marked this as a favorite.

On a Cosmological scale, you could say the Law is fate or destiny.. while Chaos is random chance or free will.

On a more personal scale, I subscribe to the idea that the Law/Chaos axis is one of consistency.

Whatever your Lawful person thinks is "right", i.e. Don't steal, torture gets the job done, pineapple is delicious on pizza.. they continue to think that no matter how the circumstances change. (At least they try).

A Chaotic person is a little more flexible. Circumstances and situations can change what is the 'right' thing to do.

Maybe.
What do I know?


Melkiador wrote:
I’m not saying that law vs chaos couldn’t be meaningful. It could. And it was more so in 2nd edition D&D. I’m more talking about how the meaningfulness of the axis was stripped away in 3rd edition, that Pathfinder inherited.

That is all true. I am hoping with a Golarion infused dusted PF2 they lean back into a heavier investment into law/chaos. YMMV

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Modern Japan is my yardstick for a RL Lawful Neutral society

Group > Individual

Tradition > everything

Always obey the letter of a law as much as possible

Reliability is the highest virtue

There are no excuses for failing in your duties

There is no harsher fate than being excluded from the group

Respect and obey those above you. Expect respect and obedience from those below you

Trust those inside the group. Distrust outsiders

And so on

Interesting sidenote : because there are no excuses for not being true to your promise, Lawful people will be extremely reluctant to promise something because that gives them yet another duty to uphold


8 people marked this as a favorite.

My complaint is that the lawful / chaotic axis involves lots of dichotomies that have nothing to do with each other.

Consider the following:

Collectivism vs. Individualism
Routine vs. Innovation
Tradition vs. Cosmopolitanism
Law vs. Crime
Consistency vs. Randomness
Processes vs. Improvisation
Discipline vs. Laxness
Authoritarian vs. Democratic

Those are all workable dichotomies, but your position on one of them is only very weakly correlated to your position on any of the others.

Suppose my character rises at the same time every day, completes his rigorous monk training regimen, and tries to perfect his skill. Sounds pretty disciplined and lawful. Nothing about that makes it any less likely that the skill he is perfecting is murdering his Chelish oppressors to hasten the glorious People's revolution.

Suppose my character believes "the old ways are the best ways", "the way my father and his father did things is the way we should keep doing things". Sounds lawful? What if my forefathers were all CE Orcs. Does my devotion to "Might makes right and murder anyone who pisses you off" make me lawful because it's traditional?

Suppose my character is an Andoran patriot, devoted to democracy, the wisdom of crowds, ending slavery, and the equal value of all living things. Sounds pretty chaotic. Does that make him less likely to be a judge, an agent of the state and a literally minister of the law.

The things traditionally associated with law and chaos have nothing to do with each other. My barbarian shouldn't lose rage powers when they start really trusting the tribal elders. My monk shouldn't lose ki powers when they start believing in democracy.

You can say these characters are neutral, but that misses the point. If you added "Lawful characters tend to be tall and Chaotic characters tend to wear red" to the list you could say my red robed basketball player was neutral, but that wouldn't help the fact that the basic division is illusory. There are innovative collectivists. There are traditional democrats. There are disciplined criminals. None of those are anything like a contradiction, but show up to a game with a LN cat burglar monk and people get confused.


I often see Law/Chaos as the axis of Predictability versus Novelty.

Some people really enjoy things being predictable and repetitive. There's a comfort in knowing how things are likely to go. Randomness, and unpredictable events, even a last-minute change of a routinely scheduled event are uncomfortable for them.

Some people really enjoy novelty, and fresh, new things that are not boring and repetitive. There's excitement in not knowing what will happen. They often prefer to try something new than to do something they've already done.

The choices are completely separate from good/evil It's whether you prefer your life to be full of routines or full of new things.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Law and Chaos don't mean much in Pathfinder because the two almost never come into conflict without also being a Good vs Evil conflict. That Cayden Cailean would hate Asmodeus is obvious, we need to see why he would hate Torag.

Liberty's Edge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Arachnofiend wrote:
Law and Chaos don't mean much in Pathfinder because the two almost never come into conflict without also being a Good vs Evil conflict. That Cayden Cailean would hate Asmodeus is obvious, we need to see why he would hate Torag.

He doesn't. Indeed, in Dwarven mythology, Cayden Cailean actually features as Torag's comedic sidekick.

But the reason he doesn't is that both of them know the other has their heart in the right place. They may (and, indeed, do) disagree on how best to help people, but they're both trying to help people.

Evil deities cannot say the same (or at least, not by the definition Good deities would use for 'help').

This goes back to my first point that Good and Evil tend to be about goals and priorities, while Law and Chaos tend to be about methodologies. A CG person will disagree with a LG person about the best way to organize society so that everyone is happy, but he agrees that everyone being happy is a good goal. A CE person may have a similar methodology to the CG one, but he's not gonna be aiming for the same goal.

And it's a lot easier to get along with people who you disagree with methodology on than with people whose end goals are diametrically opposed to your own.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Cayden apparently getting along with the most Lawful Stupid, "Smite First Ask Questions Never" deity kinda just proves my point. Law and Chaos only work if they're actually opposed to each other in some way; security vs. liberty is a common topic for two Good people on opposite ends of the spectrum to be violently opposed to each other on, for example, but that never comes up in Golarion (well, it does, but the only society that is critically concerned with security over liberty also happens to be explicitly evil).

Liberty's Edge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

My complaint is that the lawful / chaotic axis involves lots of dichotomies that have nothing to do with each other.

Consider the following:

Collectivism vs. Individualism
Routine vs. Innovation
Tradition vs. Cosmopolitanism
Law vs. Crime
Consistency vs. Randomness
Processes vs. Improvisation
Discipline vs. Laxness
Authoritarian vs. Democratic

Those are all workable dichotomies, but your position on one of them is only very weakly correlated to your position on any of the others.

Law vs. Crime and Routine vs. Innovation sometimes get added by players but have very little text actually backing up them being tied to either Law or Chaos. I wouldn't include them in a list like this.

As for the rest, that leaves the following:

Collectivism vs. Individualism
Tradition vs. Cosmopolitanism
Discipline vs. Laxness
Authoritarian vs. Democratic

And those four are actually pretty strongly correlated on a cultural level. Collectivism is strongly linked to tradition, discipline, and even authoritarianism.

As well as these two:

Consistency vs. Randomness
Processes vs. Improvisation

Which are also pretty closely correlated with each other (if less so with the four above). But honestly, individualist cultures are much more likely to encourage randomness and improvisation than collectivist ones, so I think that's still a pretty strong correlation between them.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Why must they be violently opposed? Sure when they are fighting for limited resources you will see the extremes, but there is no reason that law/chaos cant co-exist. I feel the same about good and evil (which is why animating dead being evil isnt a worry for me). Dont forget neutral being a nice buffer between them all too. I could do with a metric ton less "im good and must single-handedly destroy all evil whether im capable of it or not" /shrug


2 people marked this as a favorite.
James F.D. Graham wrote:


Whatever your Lawful person thinks is "right", i.e. Don't steal, torture gets the job done, pineapple is delicious on pizza.. they continue to think that no matter how the circumstances change. (At least they try).

That is not lawful, that is plain evil


Part of the definition of Good is that they are willing to work with people they disagree with. CN and LN deities do have conflict, just not always violent conflict. As for CE and LE... any nonviolent interactions they have are by far the exception.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

If there's no conflict, there's no story. There's really no point in trying to define law and chaos if good vs. evil is the only paradigm that matters.


If it matters or not is always up to the gm and the players
And of course it is up to the kind of campgaing that they play

Example: make a detective adventure, unusual in pf maybe but possible
We got a Paladin and CG vigilante - there is a lot of conflict potential even though they kind of want the same thing.

Might be a simple example but I think it carries the point

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Arachnofiend wrote:
Cayden apparently getting along with the most Lawful Stupid, "Smite First Ask Questions Never" deity kinda just proves my point.

Cayden Cailean isn't exactly made of mercy himself. He's certainly not as inclined to give evildoers the benefit of the doubt as Sarenrae or Shelyn. Hell, he's a common patron for more ethical mercenaries (like many adventurers). He's pretty case hardened as Good gods go.

Arachnofiend wrote:
Law and Chaos only work if they're actually opposed to each other in some way; security vs. liberty is a common topic for two Good people on opposite ends of the spectrum to be violently opposed to each other on, for example, but that never comes up in Golarion (well, it does, but the only society that is critically concerned with security over liberty also happens to be explicitly evil).

Good Deities are sort of the wrong place to look for that sort of conflict. Being paragons of Goodness, they tend to put aside such rivalries and disagreements for the greater good, y'know?

And I quite disagree that the only country prizing security over freedom is Evil. I'd strongly argue that Rahadoum's whole anti-god thing is a form of that belief, and Molthune's whole culture is built on that principle IMO. Both are LN.

Heck, even among the Good countries, LG Lastwall is a military dictatorship, as is the (also LG) Mendev. Both of them have some serious excuses for prizing security, mind you, but they've clearly given up some freedom for it.


For law and chaos to have as much active animosity as good and evil, you would almost have to bring back the NG (with chaotic tendencies) type planes or have something like:

Welcome to Elysium, where everyone is CG. While everyone in Elysium agrees that supporting CG is paramount, they live in two cities: Angelville, where they are willing to make alliances with other good types, and New Azata, where they are willing to make alliances with other chaotic types.....

In many ways, having a strong alignment (from LN, CN, NG, NE, N) that you are unlikely to break, and a weaker tendency (L, C, G, E, N) might make a better predictor than the traditional alignment.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
James F.D. Graham wrote:

On a Cosmological scale, you could say the Law is fate or destiny.. while Chaos is random chance or free will.

On a more personal scale, I subscribe to the idea that the Law/Chaos axis is one of consistency.

Whatever your Lawful person thinks is "right", i.e. Don't steal, torture gets the job done, pineapple is delicious on pizza.. they continue to think that no matter how the circumstances change. (At least they try).

A Chaotic person is a little more flexible. Circumstances and situations can change what is the 'right' thing to do.

Maybe.
What do I know?

You're talking about deontological (10 commandments) vs. Utilitarian (the greater good) thought. That's usually how I see the L/N/C axis. LG, NG, and CG are equally selfless in motive, but differ in what they see as permissible actions.

LG is concerned about not breaking the laws or the Divine Comandments.

NG is concerned about not tainting the inner compass of virtue.

CG is concerned with not sacrificing effectiveness for the greater good on the altar of some hide bound set of arbitrary rules.

In the end, they all want what is best for everyone, but they tend to differ on what they believe best is. LG thinks that everyone will be happy when order is maintained and justice is done. NG thinks that everyone will be happier when they become virtuous on the inside. CG believes that everyone will be happy when they have their freedoms in hand and a decent quality of life. It's a matter of priorities.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

1 person marked this as a favorite.
SilverliteSword wrote:


You're talking about deontological (10 commandments) vs. Utilitarian (the greater good) thought. That's usually how I see the L/N/C axis. LG, NG, and CG are equally selfless in motive, but differ in what they see as permissible actions.

LG is concerned about not breaking the laws or the Divine Comandments.

NG is concerned about not tainting the inner compass of virtue.

CG is concerned with not sacrificing effectiveness for the greater good on the altar of some hide bound set of arbitrary rules.

In the end, they all want what is best for everyone, but they tend to differ on what they believe best is. LG thinks that everyone will be happy when order is maintained and justice is done. NG thinks that everyone will be happier when they become virtuous on the inside. CG believes that everyone will be happy when they have their freedoms in hand and a decent quality of life. It's a matter of priorities.

Sure, I guess.

All I was trying to say is that the Good/Evil axis determines what your character's morales, values, and beliefs are...and the Law/Chaos axis determines how willing you are to compromise them.

Seisho wrote:
James F.D. Graham wrote:


...pineapple is delicious on pizza..
That is not lawful, that is plain evil

Alright... now the real debate can begin!


4 people marked this as a favorite.

If pineapple on pizza is evil, i dont want to be good...


Mechagamera wrote:

For law and chaos to have as much active animosity as good and evil, you would almost have to bring back the NG (with chaotic tendencies) type planes or have something like:

Welcome to Elysium, where everyone is CG. While everyone in Elysium agrees that supporting CG is paramount, they live in two cities: Angelville, where they are willing to make alliances with other good types, and New Azata, where they are willing to make alliances with other chaotic types.....

In many ways, having a strong alignment (from LN, CN, NG, NE, N) that you are unlikely to break, and a weaker tendency (L, C, G, E, N) might make a better predictor than the traditional alignment.

They don't and probably shouldn't, but personally I've put this down to the fact that for most people the distinction between Law and Chaos is largely academic while, with regard to Evil at least, it's existential. This is further complicated by the fact that Law and Chaos tend to blur together at the extremes - a Caligula-type ruler for example could be reasonably viewed as either Lawful due to the nature of his authority or Chaotic due to how he wields that authority (for the sake of full disclosure, I personally lean towards the latter interpretation)


DAMMIT I'M FUNNY!!!!


Yes, there is.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ring_of_Gyges wrote:

My complaint is that the lawful / chaotic axis involves lots of dichotomies that have nothing to do with each other.

Consider the following:

Collectivism vs. Individualism
Routine vs. Innovation
Tradition vs. Cosmopolitanism
Law vs. Crime
Consistency vs. Randomness
Processes vs. Improvisation
Discipline vs. Laxness
Authoritarian vs. Democratic

Those are all workable dichotomies, but your position on one of them is only very weakly correlated to your position on any of the others.

[+Some nice examples in which these dichotomies come apart.]

Very nicely put. This does seem to be the central problem with the coarse-grained D&D/PF alignments: they're inconsistently mapped on to different dichotomies, which makes it hard in a lot of cases to figure out what alignment a given personality (or society) is supposed to be.

And this matters because (1) cases where it's hard to determine a personalities alignment come up fairly frequently, and (2) and what alignment one assigns in these cases has in-game mechanical consequences (e.g., will my Circle of Protection from Law protect me against them).

Deadmanwalking wrote:
[Some reasons for taking many of the listed dichotomies to be correlated with each other on a cultural level.]

This might be right, and if so, one might argue that Ring of Gyges' claim that these dichotomies are "only very weakly correlated" is a bit too strong if understood as a claim about cultures as a whole.

But I take it this is compatible with Ring of Gyges' main point -- that these different dichotomies are logically independent, and can come apart in all sorts of ways. And in those cases (e.g., individuals who are disciplined, individualist, cosmopolitan, routine-following and democratic; societies which tends towards collectivism, innovation, cosmopolitanism, processes, and democracy; and so on) it's not at all clear what alignment they're supposed to be.

Liberty's Edge

Porridge wrote:

This might be right, and if so, one might argue that Ring of Gyges' claim that these dichotomies are "only very weakly correlated" is a bit too strong if understood as a claim about cultures as a whole.

But I take it this is compatible with Ring of Gyges' main point -- that these different dichotomies are logically independent, and can come apart in all sorts of ways. And in those cases (e.g., individuals who are disciplined, individualist, cosmopolitan, routine-following and democratic; societies which tends towards collectivism, innovation, cosmopolitanism, processes, and democracy; and so on) it's not at all clear what alignment they're supposed to be.

That's what Neutral Alignments are for.

I'd agree that this was an issue if there wasn't an explicit middle ground for people and cultures who have some things in common with both extremes, but we have precisely that in the Neutral Alignments.

The fact that they are, for the most part, fairly strongly correlated on a cultural level explains Chaotic and Lawful cultures (and, to a lesser degree, people), while the Neutral Alignments provide an excellent place for those cultures and people who fall somewhere in the middle.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
gustavo iglesias wrote:
Melkiador wrote:


Do you realize you are using definitions of Good to try to describe what you think Law and Chaos are? But Law and Chaos should be independent of Good and Evil shouldn't it?

Not really. Collectivism is Lawful. Now, it can be like in Sweden, which would be LG, or Soviet Russia, which I think it is LE.

Individualism is Chaotic. It can be Chaotic good, like US Constitution founding fathers, or CE, like Somalia pirates and warlords.

On the other hand, Christopher Hitchens argued that totalitarianism, which is often described as systematic, is actually bound up with caprice. The rules change constantly so that people can never be sure whether they're following the latest rule or not, and the tyrant's changeable whim at any given moment is the highest law.

Frankly I think most things (characters, actions, etc.) are too complicated to slot neatly into an alignment system. Even with the system outlined in the Escapist article linked above, one has to agree with the premises before they can start classifying things. They sound mostly reasonable to me, but if alignment is a fundamental force of nature in a given setting then it would seem, for example, that motivation and intent don't matter. Therefore the Lawful/Deontological approach is the only "correct" one for Golarion. And that leads to all sorts of weirdness and deformity, such that it's deeply dissatisfying to most players (as it always is when their morals clash with the ones that they're told are correct in-setting) and to people in general (no one in the real world is a strict deontologist).


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I feel like the Shin Megami Tensei video games offer an interesting perspective here. A great deal of the conflict takes place between the forces of Law and Chaos.

In many ways, Law is about obedience - there is a leader that decides the rules, and those rules are to be obeyed and imposed at any cost. If you're not supporting it all the way, you're really not supporting it at all. (After all, the best laws should be in place for everyone, everywhere, right? What's this "individualism" you speak of?)

Chaos, meanwhile, is about doing whatever you want. It's highly Darwinian - you get strong enough to impose your will or you suffer what others do to you. It pretty much assumes there are going to be those who seek to lead and dominate others.

Both, ultimately, are about power and who gets to have it. Of course, for complicated in-series reasons, that decision tends to rest with humanity - those who have a real choice in what ideals to support or reject. The neutral path tends to be harder, and doesn't always solve existing problems, but it does maintain greater freedom of choice... and mitigates the tyranny from the extremes of Law and Chaos.

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Athaleon wrote:
On the other hand, Christopher Hitchens argued that totalitarianism, which is often described as systematic, is actually bound up with caprice. The rules change constantly so that people can never be sure whether they're following the latest rule or not, and the tyrant's changeable whim at any given moment is the highest law.

Totalitarianism is really its own thing. It tends to look pretty anti-individualist in most cases, but I wouldn't really call it collectivist in most instances either (though fascism certainly claims to be collectivist, it's not really an accurate characterization).

I'd say it's an Evil political system pretty much universally, but whether LE or CE or somewhere in between varies a lot depending on the leader and principles it's operating under. To what degree are the people in charge true believers and to what degree do they follow their own rules?

If it's really just entirely governed by one person's whims, then it's the ultimate expression of personal autonomy and individualism for that one person and probably CE, but that's not how all totalitarian regimes work in practice (and indeed often not even close).


Melkiador wrote:

Something that bugged me in Pathfinder is that there didn't ever seem to be an actual meaningful difference between Law and Chaos other than types and descriptors for creatures and spells. Someone could do almost anything and give a reasonable argument for it to be either a lawful or a chaotic act. So, what is the value in even having that alignment axis? Does it ever inform what your character would do in a situation?

At least with good vs evil, you can make some baselines. Doing something that lessens you to benefit others is good. Doing something that lessens others to benefit yourself is evil. And then there are lots of shades of grey based around those two baselines, so while it can still be confusing, at least there is some firm ground to stand on.

I've used it as essentially distinguishing between how one enacts the goals arising from one's moral compass.

So a lawful character believes in a kind of 'social contract' and ascribes weight to fulfilling that contract, even when doing so contravenes their morality (whether good or evil).

A chaotic character believes that one's individual moral judgment should be the determining factor and that restrictions on that via a code/body of law should be resisted (orthogonal to the moral consequences of imposing that code).

It introduces tension between the two axes - so NG, NE, LN and CN become the 'pure' alignments and the diagonal alignments face genuine ethical quandaries.


My experience matches the OP. I can tell pretty quickly if my party members are good or evil without looking at their character sheet, but lawful vs chaotic can be indistinguishable.

Its just too easy to make arguments either way.


Another point I'd forgotten to make earlier is that it is, arguably, inappropriate to attempt to attribute any Chaos any sort of coherent set of beliefs or values since doing so inherently reduces it to a different flavour of Lawful.

Certainly in my home games the two axes are effectively Good and Lawful with Evil and Chaos existing solely as their antitheses.


Your bigshot devil or archon is powerful because (s)he has a lot of followers.

Your bigshot demon or azata has a lot of followers because (s)he is powerful.

51 to 100 of 157 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Playtests & Prerelease Discussions / Pathfinder Playtest / Pathfinder Playtest Prerelease Discussion / Is there any value in the Law vs Chaos axis? All Messageboards